A Productive Day

Tuesday began miserably. The rain was thick and hard, and it was dark. But at 9:30, the sky cleared, and sunshine started drying everything up. Sheba and I enjoyed our walk in spectacularly clear and fresh air, and then I came home to work on the hot tub. I worked hard on the scrubbing of the tub and the cleaning of the valves and filters, and then I ordered nice fresh and well filtered water—300 gallons of it, and it arrives this morning. By tonight, it will be warm enough to get into. By tomorrow, it will be hot again and crystal clear. 

When I finally finished the tub, I cleaned up the courtyard and then Her Highness and I went to Rollo Park to play fetch. She becomes giddy two blocks from the park when she realizes where we are going. She whimpers with excitement and starts licking my ear. She loves to play fetch, and I love playing with her. Plus, at Rollo Park, the sky is big, bright and wide open.

While we were at the park, Dr. O’Donnel, the ophthalmic specialist to whom I’ve been referred, called, but I missed his call. That was fast. I only saw and got the referral from Dr. Nguyen on Monday. I’ll call today and get my appointment day set.

The best part of yesterday was sensing that my speech was truly slightly better than it’s been for the past while. And I reckon that I know why. I’ve spent the past month thinking about why it might have become worse for my meeting next week with Dr. Shoja. That mean thinking about myself and my past, and that always makes me upset and that would make my symptoms worse. But I believe the work was worth it; I have pages of stuff for Dr. S. to read.

The worst part of yesterday involved dealing with technical issues. Tracey, who leads out UK FND group, has been ill, so for the past two months, and for another couple of months more, I have been leading the sessions. On Monday, I had to send all 43 members of our group a notice of our Zoom meeting tomorrow. Well, I couldn’t do it. Google wanted to verify that I was authorized to use our Gmail account. TO do that, they wanted to send me a text, and that can’t happen as I don’t have a cell phone, and worse, the number attached to our account is a UK number, and I had no idea whose number it was.

I’ve been trying to sort the problem since Monday, and yesterday morning, as we were facing having to cancel the class without being able to tell everyone, I was in a bit of a panic. However, finally, and with a lot of help from several people, we got the problem fixed. 

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Today has dawned bright and beautiful, but it’s a chilly 7° this morning. The fresh water arrives this morning, I’ve a Zoom call with my friend Brian, Ron will walk Her Highness this afternoon, and I have a lot of weed whacking to do.

Baboon Mouth

I’m sure all will be well, but my eye doctor has referred me to another ophthalmologist to look at my eye. I’m impressed with Dr. Nguyen because it was her suggestion that I see a second eye surgeon for another point of view. So that will happen sometime soon.

We had an easy peasy trip to the doc’s place. I left here at 7:15 and got onto the 7:30 ferry, and when the appointment was over, I did some shopping and then we arrived at the terminal just as the ferry was finishing unloading, so we went directly on board.

As always happens, I felt, when I got home, incredibly happy and relieved to be back. It was as though I’d been gone for days, how I felt. Such is my addiction to home. We all had lunch and then Ron arrived to walk Sheba and I get busy scrubbing the hot tub. 

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One year when I was in college (1966-1970), I was part of a carpool of two for a while. Dale was the other guy. He was wealthy and Jewish, and like other Jewish people I have met or known, he believed in giving pack to his community, so I joined him in volunteering at Gordon Neighbourhood House that was, at the time, led by Emory Barnes, who one played for the BC Lions (pro football).

Dale and I were assigned to spend time with a young fellow who was completely withdrawn, and he wouldn’t talk. We met in the art room where Dale and I would do creative things and talk with him. That’s all we did, and we did it at least once a week. I had to stop when Summer came because I had a job. When I finished, Mr. Barnes asked me to meet with him, and so I went to his office where he interviewed me.

Mr. Barnes and the boy’s full-time attendant asked me questions about the boy, and I did my best to answer them. They were questions about eye contact, facial changes, head turns etcetera in response to our conversations with him. At the end, they told me about the boy. I don’t want to tell you what his parents did, gut the boy became a ward of the state (as happened to me), and his parents went to jail. 

This amazes me, this story, I realized this last night.

I remember asking Mr. Barnes why he wouldn’t speak. And the boy’s attendant explained that the boy can link all known things and colours and smells, everything he sees and sense, to objects in the room where he was abuse. In other words, for this young lad, everything is a trigger. 

I am not triggered by everything, but like this boy, I have withdrawn due to childhood trauma. I can’t fucking believe that. But that poor boy went far, far deeper into withdrawal than I have.

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I have another story—a story that makes me very angry. Here’s what I wrote to Dr. S.

Baboon mouth. This is something that really upsets me.

I went to Namibia a while back, and so when I discovered a fellow named Ruben on YouTube, I started watching his videos of the animals they adopted and protect on their farm. Ruben, the host of the videos, is the son of the farmer. His parents adopted a baby Baboon named Cindy. Cindy is blind. Ruben was born 2years after they took in Cindy, and all his life, Ruben has called Cindy his sister. I love them both.

When any of the Meercats, Mongoose, and baby Warthogs approach Cindy, she picks them up and cuddles them.  And to express her pleasure, she ‘snaps’ her lips back and forth. A few times lately, I have done the same thing! I’ve never done it before in the 8 years of having my condition. It kind of freaks me out that I’m imitating a baboon. Doing the snaping was not my idea; twice, it’s just happened, and like my seizures and speech, I can’t help it. This condition feels like a malevolent disorder. A big fat fucking bully. It really pisses me off that I’m doing this. It just happens. I am not consciously in control.

Giving me speech to people I trust but making it impossible with my closest friends, and now, imitating a Baboon!? Bullying!

Not only am I getting worse, I am also getting weird. The other night, I started shaking like I was getting electrocuted, and I fell over. It lasted seconds, but it scared me to death. I was very nervous for a while, and still am about driving. I was like no other seizure I’ve ever had.

It is therapy to put this all in writing. Who would believe this?

I once called this blog, Diary of a Madman. This post, more than any other, proves its worth.

Henceforth, regardless of what more surprises are coming to me due to FND, I will remember that boy,, and I’ll pray to a God that I don’t believe in, that he healed as best he could, and that he had close friends. And every time I honour him, I am reminded to be good to myself as well.

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It’s been pouring rain this morning, and there’s been lots of wind, so I am hoping we do not have another power outage. But tomorrow, a long stretch of good weather begins, so I’ll be back in the gardens again. Yahoo!

Power Out!

I’ve been off-line for quite a while due to a power failure. Finally, I have power again. I did not use my generator. I didn’t have the need. I just waited through the dark and quiet. This morning, I went to the eye doctor, when I got home, the power was finally back on.

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What a busy morning I had on Saturday! I washed all my bedding and then got busy scrubbing the edges of the hot tub where the chemicals form a hard white crust at the waterline. It’s going to take an incredible amount of elbow grease to get it clean, but I am into it. But I go slowly. I don’t like doing the same thing for too long, so I scrub with my left hand, then the right, then I take a break. During the breaks, I vacuumed, did dishes and swept the deck. I was the Energizer Bunny all morning.

One nice surprise was Dwight calling. For the past while, I have only been able to say one syllable at a time with him, but Saturday morning I could say short sentences. It was a huge relief to us both. 

By lunchtime, having started at 5:30 in the morning, I was totally beat. It had begun to rain, so I had no trouble deciding on what to do. I had a nap. And oh, what a wonderful thing to do. I hate how easily I tire, but I love naps, and all three of my beloved pets came to sleep with me.

The rain endured, so the remainder of the afternoon was spent reading. It was real rain. I was very happy for the gardens and the yard.

In the evening, I watched No Man’s Land, streaming on National Theatre at Home, and what an experience. I chose the play knowing nothing about it. For the firs 20 minutes or so, I was not engaged, with neither the writing nor the plot. But then, it wasn’t about plot, this play, I thought. The ensuing 20 minutes held me, but that isn’t saying much.

The second act was a big shift. It built on the first act, but the characters become people instead of soulless voices speaking clever words. And Ian McClellan is a miracle of an actor in this show. Patrick Stewart and the other two actors are all great, but Ian McClellan is sensational perfection. I was weeping during the curtain call.

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I was pissed when Lady Gaga made a big deal of her PTSD in the media. As I know PTSD, or in my case C-PTSD, it severely impacts our sensibilities. We are constantly on alert, so I cannot see how she can be around massively amplified sounds, bright lights and crowds. I felt she was diminishing what is a devastating aspect of my life and lives of others. Also, there’s an epidemic of self-diagnosis in the conversations of social media and in life conversations. That also bugs me. As has happened with the word, “allergy.” 

Yesterday, on an entertainment news feed I follow, I read that a woman in Los Angeles had filed a lawsuit claiming she suffered from PTSD because another woman had rubbed her vagina. 

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When I was six or seven years old, Connie Tyrell discovered another adoptive mother in our neighbourhood. Her name was Jean. Connie invited jean to visit her, and she told me. I waws very interested in what they would discuss, so I crept downstairs from my room to listen. Good fortune was with me, because when I peeked around the corner at them, I chose exactly the right moment. 

Connie, with her long red fingernails, took a deep drag from hir cigarette, turned to Jean as she stubbed out the butt, exhaled a huge amount of smoke and said, “Well jean, you just don’t know what you’re going to get when you adopt, do you.”

I think that moment was the origin of my ‘bitch within.’ Ask any of my friends. They will all tell you about my bitch within who frequently emerges in conversation. Someone will say something, and suddenly I am air smoking a cigarette, taking a drag, blowing it out and then saying something horrid. My best moment was at a Vancouver Art Gallery party when a pompous board member said something to me that I thought was a little nasty, so I took a deep drag off my imaginary cigarette, blew out the smoke and said, “You know, little man, what you said would have hurt me if it had been said by someone with intelligence.”

Yesterday, I happened on an interview of Tom Hanks with Graham Norton, and at one point he does exactly as I d o. He puffs on an imaginary cigarette, using the two-finger hold that I do, and he said something nasty to Tom Holland! I am not alone!  

Animal Maestro

Friday dawned too cool for me. It was 11° when we set off to meet our friends for a morning forest walk. It’s nice when I warm up from the walking, and it was truly lovely when the sun was warming my back. When we were done, we went to the clinic for my Covid booster, and then we went shopping in the village. Today, the rains begin are back for several days.

I planted two new plants, a scented Azalea and another Clematis. I’m planting Clematis around the edges of the edible garden to grow up the fence, and when I do that, I must bind some chicken wire on the outside of the fence to protect the Clematis from the deer.

Ron took Her Highness walking at 1:00, and when they came home, I was ready for a rest and so was Sheba. I should have been out in the garden beds, but I was beat from all the activities of the day and so I took to the chaise. The work stacking the wood, and going to fitness, has taught me that I must not overdo activities if I want my symptoms to stay dormant.

It clouded over in the evening, and we are predicted to have rain until Wednesday, so last night, overnight, I drained the hot tub. During breaks in the rain, I will scrub it clean and clean all the filters before having crystal clear and treated water delivered from Nanaimo. It’s a big job getting all the cleaning done, but the rewards are fabulous. I love my spa!

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This morning, I was on a cleaning binge. As the weather sucks, I am doing a second Spring cleaning of the house. It feels good to be doing it. It’s going to be a dull day being indoors all day, but I will enjoy relaxing with the pets and reading today. Tomorrow’s predicted to be very wet.

Drag name: Ivana Acquittal